This is Reiki for skeptics, written by someone who works mostly with them. I'll start with what I won't tell you. I won't tell you Reiki channels universal energy through my hands, that it clears your chakras, or that it works because we're all connected. Those are ways of talking about it that some practitioners find true and useful. For a skeptic they are the reason you never booked.

Here is what I will tell you: a Reiki session is 45 minutes of lying still, fully clothed, while another person holds calm, unhurried attention on your body with hands resting lightly on or above it. Nothing is applied, taken, or manipulated. And the nervous system — the part of you that decides whether to be alert or at rest — responds to exactly those conditions, whether or not the mind approves.

Most of my clients in Cannes are founders, investors, lawyers, engineers. Analytical by trade, sceptical by habit. They come because something isn't working — sleep, energy, the ability to switch off — and they've tried the things they believe in. They stay because something changes. Not because they converted.

What I think is happening

I'm a second-degree practitioner, not a physiologist, so take this as an informed opinion. The body has two settings: alert and rest. Alert is for threat and effort; rest is for repair, digestion and sleep. Modern life, and relocation in particular, keeps most people in alert far longer than the body was built for. Rest becomes something you fall into from exhaustion rather than something you can enter.

A session gives the body every signal that rest is safe: stillness, warmth, slow steady contact, another human's undivided calm attention, no demand of any kind. Held for long enough — usually around ten minutes — the body takes the signal. That's the drop people describe. Everything after it is the body doing what it does when it's finally allowed to.

Does Reiki add something beyond that? I think so. I can't prove it, and I don't need you to agree. The mechanism above is enough to explain most of what people report, and it requires no belief at all.

What I don't know

I don't know why many people feel warmth or pressure in places I'm not touching. I don't know why some people sleep differently for a week after one session. I've stopped pretending to. I'd rather tell you what I see and let you test it than build a theory you'd have to accept first.

How to test it like a skeptic

1. Book one session, not a package. €180. You're gathering data, not committing. 2. Don't try to feel anything. Lie there thinking "this is nonsense" if you like. The body doesn't need your cooperation. 3. Track two things for the 48 hours after: how you slept, and how easily you got irritated. Those are the earliest, most measurable shifts. 4. Decide from that, not from the session itself. The session may feel like a pleasant rest and nothing more. The night after is the data.

One client — analytical, running a fund from Cap d'Antibes — told me afterwards he'd spent the first twenty minutes mentally drafting an email. He couldn't remember the last twenty-five. He slept nine hours. He came back, and he still doesn't believe in energy work. That's fine with me.

What I'll never ask of you

To believe. To visualise. To say "yes" out loud to receive. To buy a package before you've had a session. To stop seeing your doctor — Reiki is complementary, it sits alongside medical care and doesn't replace anything.

FAQ

Does Reiki work if you don't believe in it? Yes. The body responds to stillness, warmth and calm attention regardless of what the mind thinks. Most of my clients are sceptics; the results they report don't depend on belief.

What is Reiki, without the mystical language? Forty-five minutes of lying still while a practitioner holds calm, unhurried attention on your body with light hand contact. The nervous system reads it as safety and stands down.

How should a skeptic try Reiki? Book one session, don't try to feel anything, and track sleep and irritability for the next 48 hours. Judge by the data, not by the hour itself.

If you'd like to test it

One session, €180, at my space in Cannes or at your home. Message me on WhatsApp. Bring your scepticism; it doesn't get in the way.